Approval addicts

How does it feel when someone gives you an approval on what you are doing? Certainly, good! And if the person who approves your actions is someone close and important to you then, well, you might even end up in heaven!!!

We as human beings are designed by God himself to respond to approvals from other people. There is at least one person living on the face of the earth whose word of encouragement and affirmation would mean a lot to us, motivating us to do better, and simply making us feel amazing. It is a perfectly normal dependence that is meant to be practiced within a healthy God-fearing family. We approve one another and bless one another for the beautiful effort of co-existing and looking out for one another's needs and the positive words we are giving out to each other build us up as human beings, and bring us closer to God Who, in His Love for this creation, intended for us to be perfectly happy, while in union with Him. Imagine yourself praising your wife for doing such a good work at looking after the family, and at the same time hearing the grateful words from your kids for being such a great parent in Jesus! It's all Love of God in action!! :)

And, of course, as with all gifts that God gave us, the devil warped this one too, making it look evil and destructive.

When we grow up without a healthy dose of approval from our parents, we obtain an emptiness inside of us. Some space that can be filled by nothing no matter how hard we would try. Girls that never hear their daddies approve their beauty will always be chasing men, trying to get the magic words "You are beautiful" out of them, yet never being satisfied. Boys, whose mommies never accepted them as future males, approving their male character, will be chasing after girls trying to find the admiration and love that the mother should have provided, yet always being hungry. Those who never heard that their work is good and excellent will become workaholics and perfectionists, trying better than their best, laboring for other day and night, thriving on the approval of friends and colleagues. Children, whose parents never told them they are the best kids in the world, will have an empty heart for the rest of their lives, and might try to end their "pointless" existence through suicide.

The list can go on and on. Addictions, reputation, performance, peer pressure - all these have one thing in common - people's approval. It is for the approval and acceptance of other human beings that we do all these things, often harming ourselves and our relationship with God and others. The approval we receive satisfies the deepest need of every human being - to belong.

When God has created the first men, He placed them in the Garden of Eden, giving them a task of ruling over the earth. He also took trouble to live with them on the earth, visiting them in the cool of the day, checking out how they were doing. With the purpose for their existance, and with God perpetually coming to visit them, showing interest in their work and approving them through the presence of His love, Adam and eve had a perfect life filled with the sense of belonging. There was no lack of approval form God's side so they were never tempted to leave the Garden, searching for something better. There was nothing better!

Now an important question needs to be answered. Does God love me? Simple, yet profound. Does He or does He not? Let's look at the Scripture that mentions the Love of God. A good place is in Romans 5:8:

But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

Verse 8 is the most powerful to me out of this passage. Clearly, God loved us even before we were born, even before we knew Him and accepted Him as our Lord and Savior. Look at me for instance. Ten years ago I did not know God and was on my way to hell. Yet, this verse tells me that God loved me even back then. So then the things I did back then did not have any effect on His love for me. And from this it would follow that God loves me unconditionally.

Now even if God loves me unconditionally, does He give me unconditional approval for all that I do? Certainly not. There are many times in our lives when the Holy Spirit convicts us of some things we do in our lives. Two examples I can bring out of my own life. First it is quenching a prophecy I receive for someone just because i am too scared of what people might think about me if i am wrong. Secondly it is being stubborn and doing my own thing even if I know I would be going against God's will and authority of other people in my life. These two things God does not approve in my life and convicts me whenever I have them.

God expects us to walk perfectly in harmony with His Spirit, carefully listening to His Guidance in our hearts. It takes a lot of sacrifice (I speak of my own experience!) and many people do not want to listen to God becaue the price is their own lifestyle and things they have. But the only way to do things that God will approve of you is to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit every day - whatever He tells you, do it and the joy and embrace of the Holy Spirit and God's Love will always rest upon you!

Will people around you ever be able to approve and encourage you in the way that God will? NO! People are people, fallible human beings, who never can act completely without selfish motives. And the emptiness in a selfish heart is somewhat reduced if it can be allowed to degrade and criticize someone else, feeling superior and better in the process. Who gets hurt? YOU!

So do not make your life's goal to attain approval from people, especially from those who do not mean much to you. You will be chasing wind and always be hungry. You think that if you will speak like them, dress like them, behave like them and do all the things that they do - then they will approve you? The chances are better to find a freezer in the Sahara desert! People who constantly exercise peer pressure on you will never approve you of being like them because then they would declare you equal to them. They, on the other hand, want to control you and feel superior over you, thereby fulfilling their need for being independent. And the only way they can control you is by fear of rejection, fear of cutting the little bit of approval they give you off. Stop it! Break free and move on!

Jesus is the perfect Friend. He always loves you, no matter what you do, and He is always ready to help you whenever you did something that he would disapprove. He does not degrade, manipulate, cheat or control anyone, but relates to everyone on a feeling of mutual trust. People that you think will approve of your action, will never give you the words of appreciation that you are longing for. But Jesus will! He is Love and He wants you to love Him back - right here and right now! And that Love is unconditional! :)

Serving the smallest...

Simply amazing how God can speak to us sometimes!...

I have now been doing 4 weeks of outreach in YWAM. This entails mainly getting up from my cozy bed in the chilly windy weather of Cape Town in April, and going out somewhere in town or on the neighboring farms to reach out to local people. We usually drive through the neighborhood, tooting and inviting everyone to come to the main square or a near public soccer stadium or a school ground. There we set up a little show. Some of us do evangelical songs, some do dances and drama, others simply hang around among and with people, hugging and smiling. I fall into the latter category - mainly! :) (Although I DO love dramas and participate whenever there is a chance - that is almost everyday!) Then we close the meeting and pray for everyone who decided to accept Christ and then we move on to the next location. But this is just logistics....

Guess what is the age of the majority? Yeah, you got it - under 12's! And boy, there are so many of them! One day we had about 30-40 people above the age of 12 and the rest were younger than that - and over 5oo kids!!! Wow! We were all quite busy - keep in mind that we were only about 18 at that time. But God gave us mercy - so much mercy!..

I hugged almost everyone there - if a kid would pass me throwing glances on my so-very-unusually-pale face (remember, this is Africa) I would simply extend my hand to them and shake their palm, or hug them if they wanted to. About 200 - 300 hugs per day, beat that!! My clothes were so dusty eventually I had to wash them so very often! But I was so happy!! In some unknown way i felt that God was working through me, through every hug that I gave out to those kids, and still will be giving out. I am not a very good preacher, although I did get a privilege last week to share my life testimony in front of 2000 high school children! But I had been praying about knowing the heart of God so much! And now, through our ministry, I see how God has faithfully been answering that prayer! :) Whenever I would look at those kids through my soul's eyes, I would see dirty, naughty kids, some of them malformed due to their moms abusing drugs and alcohol. The sight used to repel me. but now I can no longer find a trace of that resentment - on the contrary, whenever I look at a kid like that, tears fill my eyes... I feel the pain of Jesus for this broken world, for the lives of these broken and discarded kids, where many of them live without ever knowing their parents. Jesus loves them so much - and who am I to deny them a hug if God Himself wants to do it so badly. I asked for God's heart to be my heart - and here are the consequences: I am receiving a Christ-like attitude and it reflects even in my ministries now!

And I simply cannot describe it when the love of god that flows to these poor kids through me returns to me from them! It is a feeling of deep softness, satisfaction and joy, beyond what any words can describe. They do not need words to express their gratitude for the love they receive through us - they just receive it, and that in itself is a huge gratification for us.

One event I will never forget for the rest of my life - how God used me and how I saw God and his Hand when His perfect Love returned to me tenfold from where I have sown it. We went to a primary school and there played with preschool kids as a part of our ministry. Boy, they have so much energy I thought, as I watched them climb about on their little wooden poles and swings. There was a little platform and they all climbed on top of it. from there the kids were one by one jumping into my arms, as i was catching them with almost no effort. Why,they were so teeny tiny! Whether it was malnutrition or genetics, they were simply beautiful with their cute little faces full of excitement, as they jumped with outstretched arms, fully confident that I will safely catch them. After about 100 catches i grew weary and my back needed some rest. (I will never ever have more than a dozen kids in my family, I swear!!) As i announced that I was tired and needed rest, all sweaty and dusty in the hot sun, the kids took my hand and led me to a shade under a nearby wooden platform. There I lied down on my back looking at the skies. And then the kids gathered around me, and began admiring my blue eyes and light hair. Suddenly one of them noticed that my whole face was covered with sweat and dust and gently began wiping it off with her little palms. Soon others joined in and were cleaning my face...

That was the moment when I heard the voice of god speaking to me so clearly, I almost began to cry right there and then! I thought that the best lesson I learned today was the one about the faith of these children in my arms, being a shadow that we as Christians ought to have in the arms of Jesus. But the message that came across as I laid on the grass was so much more profound! I realized that, although I was not a great preacher or a very strong muscular hunk, i still gave these kids all that i had, even if it meant standing in the sun for a whole hour, catching them again and again, as they were continuously returning to the platform. That was a sacrifice for me, I knew that, it was all I could give them back then. And now, they were giving me all that they could offer, even if it was only caressing my face, wiping it clean with their tiny hands. So does one hand wash another, and so must one member of the Body of Christ care for another, with all they have, any time, any day and not holding anything back. i learned this lesson from God through those little preschool kids who were so poor the whole society discarded them as hopeless. Truly God uses the weak and the poor to bring to shame the strong and the rich (see 1 Corinthians 1:26-29). and if I would be so foolish as not to reach out to those kids, I would have missed the presence of the Most High God, because He is in everything, reaching out to us with His Eternal Love and Compassion. Those who have eyes - oh, Jesus, let them all see You everywhere You are! :)